


Change Came In Disguise of Revelation

by Stregatrek



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Bisexual B. J. Hunnicutt, Bisexual Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, Canon-Typical Drinking, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, M/M, Oh my god they were tentmates, The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known, poly negotiations when one of you is across an ocean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:21:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27694756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stregatrek/pseuds/Stregatrek
Summary: in his dreams they dance, the three of them, in a way that’s not possible in reality, Peggy’s party dress under his hands with her hand in his, her other on BJ’s shoulder, both of BJ’s around his waist.
Relationships: B. J. Hunnicutt/Peg Hunnicutt/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce
Comments: 3
Kudos: 37





	Change Came In Disguise of Revelation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [onekisstotakewithme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/onekisstotakewithme/gifts).



It’s a quiet Sunday evening in the Swamp, Hawkeye and BJ sitting in companionable silence. Hawk is casting sidelong looks at his bunkmate, admiring the way he’s haloed by the shoddy lamplight. He’s writing Peggy a letter, looking back and forth between it and a picture of her, a slight smile on his face. Hawkeye is pretending to read, wanting nothing more than to be part of the scene. He wishes BJ would look at him that way more often, wishes he could prop his head on the other doctor’s shoulder and admire Peggy openly right along with him.  


“You gonna tell me why you’re starin’, Hawk?” BJ looks up with a half-smile, catching him off-guard.  


Hawkeye rolls his eyes dramatically. “Don’t let it go to your head. Just staring into the middle distance. You’re taking up a lot of valuable brooding real estate.”  


“Oh, well, I’ll get out of your internal limelight,” BJ rolls his eyes right back, still smiling. “Actually, I’m stuck, c’mere- tryin’ to think of something to say I haven’t said a hundred times before, about Peg in this dress.” He turns, setting his feet on the floor and smoothing the letter in his lap. “Here, look,” BJ is holding out the picture, his expression tender and expectant.  


Hawkeye takes it, feeling like a thief as his dry fingers steal across the glossy paper. “She’s beautiful, Beej,” he says, wondering how many times he’s said that, how many pictures of Peg Hunnicutt he’s looked at like this, with BJ looking at him as he looks at her. Is it any surprise he’s falling in love with her too? Especially in this party dress, dancing through BJ’s stories, a fairytale all her own.  


“This is what she was wearing the night we got engaged. And in that dream I had.”  


Hawkeye knows what dream his bunkie means immediately- there had to have been something in the water, that week, between him and Margaret and BJ and Potter. He’d asked Charles, too, after the insufferable bastard’s umpteenth cup of coffee, but he’d gotten his head bitten off for his trouble. He figured that was Winchester for a yes to the question about the nightmares and a no to the implicit offer of empathy. “Yeah,” he doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t even like to think about that week. The things they saw awake were bad enough; being followed into dreams was something he tried to push down and lock away, just like Peggy is, except she’s not unwelcome. She’s more than welcome, to all of him, everything he has, everything he is or ever will be. It’s just that it’s too painful to try imagining the reverse. _Hello, Mrs. Hunnicutt, you’ve never met me, but I love you, and I love the man you love. Mind if I borrow him? Throw in yourself while you’re at it?_ It's a crazy pitch, and he knows it. He hands back the picture. BJ’s quiet, looking between him and it like he’s waiting. Hawkeye hates being at a loss for words- it’s rare, here, but whenever it happens it seems to be because whatever there is to say is _important_. There aren’t any ‘right’ words for this scenario, he doesn’t think. Quiet for too long, his voice is too soft when he says, “She’s sure something.”  


He’d meant it to come out the way it did when they got a new nurse. With feeling, not with heart. BJ seems to pick up on it. “You okay, Hawk?”  


“Hm? Me? Oh, fine, fine,” he stands, paces the narrow length of their tent, gets a martini for lack of anything else to do with his hands or his mouth. Or his heart or his mind, but- god, that’s awful. He pulls a face. “Beej, what did you do to this stuff? I swear, I leave you alone for five minutes,” he sits back on his bunk, kicking his feet up.  


BJ left alone meant Hawkeye on a trip to an aid station, and it was clear from the twist of BJ’s California smile- like a wave breaking, rolling under itself, dragging you down- that it was too soon to talk about. “Sorry, Hawkeye, I thought I did it just like you do,”  


“Oh, no no no, nobody does it just like I do. Ask anyone, they’ll all tell you, unique, me-nique, finestkind,” if anything he just said made any kind of sense to BJ, he’d have to check the other doctor for a stroke. “Say, anybody smell burnt toast?”  


Winchester chooses that moment to re-enter the Swamp. “Experimenting with cologne, again, Pierce?” He quips, dropping to his bunk to untie his boots.  


“Ha-ha, Charles, no, for your information it was the scent of dreams going up in smoke,”  


“You knew he was coming and didn’t warn me?” BJ looks up, wide-eyed, and Hawk grins.  


“Ve-ery amusing, gentlemen.” Their third tentmate is saying something more, but Hawkeye isn’t listening. It’s enough that the spell has been broken, that he’s not dancing with Peggy in her party dress anymore, that BJ’s there to cut in but he’s been frozen on the sidelines, like a record scratching, before Hawkeye has found out which one of them he’s going to ask to dance with.  


Speaking of a record scratching. “Not the luftwaffe music,” BJ groans.  


“I see the Colonel has infected you with his absurd-”  


“I _hate_ Wagner,” BJ flops to his bunk, folding his pillow over his ears. “Make it stop."  


“That’s _Wagner_ ,” Charles corrects, and with that accent Hawkeye doubts _Wagner_ is any more right than Wagner. “And he was formative in what we consider modern operatic sensibilities,” Those vowels absolutely beg to be made fun of, parroted back impossibly more drawn out than they are, but Hawk feels like his mouth is glued shut. He’s rocking idly back and forth, hunched around his martini, knowing neither of them is watching him. Or if they are, they don’t care.  


“What _you_ consider ‘sensibilities’ is something _I_ don’t like to think about,” BJ throws a balled-up sock. Winchester ducks with ease born of practice. Sometimes Hawkeye wonders what would happen if he interrupted this dynamic. Say, by dumping a martini on one of them. Which one depends on the day, whether he’s busy thinking of BJ stripping off a sodden overshirt or if he just wants to run like hell, because there’s no doubt Winchester would chase him over hill and dale- or supply and jeep- for a stunt like that.  


He sips his martini, relaxing back onto his bunk as much as he can. Everything feels wrong wrong wrong like pressure too close around him, like there’re blinders on his eyes but no matter which way he looks he can’t get the full picture. He can’t sit straight. He smiles to himself, looking into his drink. Can’t sit straight. Can’t do much of anything straight. Straight up, he thinks, and downs the martini.  


“Has that gotten better?” BJ is talking to him, he realizes.  


“No,” he answers. “But I’ve gotten worse. Wanna hand me another one there, Beej?”  


“I’m not taking this pillow off for anything.” BJ says, with a half-smile. “Get it yourself. And get me one too,”  


Martini-fetching is so low on the list of things he would do for BJ Hunnicutt that it barely registers as a request. “Fine, fine, you’re gonna need a hand to hold it though.”  


“Just stick it between my knees,” BJ jokes.  


With a heavy sigh, Winchester interrupts what’s passing for witty repartee tonight. “The fact that you are carrying on conversation would suggest that you can, in fact, hear,”  


BJ looks up at Hawkeye, eyes wide and smile bright. “Did you say something? Sorry, it’s just, I have this pillow over my head. It’s a condition, you know.”  


“Winchester-itis,” Hawkeye nods knowingly. “I’ve written myself a prescription for that one a few times,” He holds out a martini glass, and BJ takes it, toasting him.  


He doesn’t know where the night goes, but it’s probably down the same road as the others they’ve soaked in gin from the still, weaving and flickering, memories softened and blurred around the edges. In the morning, the only part of it he really recalls is BJ. Making BJ laugh, seeing him light up- the way Hawkeye bets he does when he’s not in hell. At war. Somehow worse.  


Crawling out of his bunk takes a strength that would give Atlas a run for his money, but once he’s showered and shaved and on his third cup of coffee he feels slightly more human.  


BJ, across the mess table, looks the same way. “I wasn’t made to suffer like this,” Hawkeye complains to him. “I’m too pretty.”  


“If you’d said that before you shaved, I might’ve been inclined to argue,”  


“Funny, I was going to say the same thing to you,”  


BJ holds his hand protectively over his moustache. “Hey now. Be nice to JB.”  


Hawekeye can’t help but tip his head back and cackle, even if the sound hurts his own ears. “Beej, you- you _named_ that thing?”  


“Well if you aren’t going to be nice, I’m not going to tell you what it stands for,”  


“Mail call, sirs,” Klinger crashes onto the bench beside Hawkeye. “Late night? Those bags under your eyes could almost fit all these packages.”  


Rolling his eyes at the Corporal, Hawkeye holds his hand out. “Then I’ll take mine and carry them away. Look, Beej, no hands,”  


“Pierce, B.F. Crabapple Cove,” Klinger passes over the mail. “And Hunnicutt, BJ. Mill Valley.” He yawns and stands. “Either of you sirs know where the third musketeer is?”  


“Potter?”  


“Margaret?”  


They guess at the same time, laughing. Klinger rolls his eyes at them. “Oh, _Winchester_ , sure, sure-” Hawkeye pretends to realize. “Tall fella,”  


“Head rubs on the ceiling,” BJ adds.  


“Is _that_ what happened to his hair?” Hawk sets his spoon down with a clatter, feigning amazement as he stares across the table.  


BJ shakes his head. “Tragic,” he says. “It was so young.”  


“ _Sir_ ,”  


Chuckling, Hunnicutt gestures out the door. “Post-op.”  


“Thanks,” Klinger strides off, pink skirt swishing out the door as it closes. Hawkeye’s ripped open his letter and is reading as fast as he can, though between his dad’s cramped doctor’s handwriting and his own hangover, it’s slow going. Across the table, BJ is doing the same, coffee and oatmeal forgotten. When Hawkeye gets to the end, he starts again.  


“Hawk.”  


“Hm?” He looks up, smiling, squinting into the light.  


BJ’s grin is too bright, too sharp- “C’mon,”  


Standing, snagging his coffee, Hawkeye follows him. “What’s goin’ on, Beej?”  


The door of the Swamp drops shut behind them, and BJ takes a few steps before he turns, the letter clasped in his hands, smile still too wide. “Hawkeye, this letter from Peggy,” BJ takes a deep breath. “It’s not just to me. It’s for you, too.”  


That tone of voice brooks more than a shared recipe or knitting pattern- those have happened, before. And sometimes when he writes to her she includes his answers with BJ’s letters, but this doesn’t sound like that either, a letter passed between them with a grin and a request for another drink. “Thanks,” he holds his hand out, waiting for the letter.  


Instead, BJ takes him by the wrist, looking down at him with some barely-repressed emotion that’s making his eyes absurdly bright. “Peggy… she wants me to know- wants us to know- Hawkeye, can I kiss you?”  


“ _What?_ ”  


There’s no way that question just came out of BJ’s mouth, and Hawkeye thinks of checking himself for a stroke, this time. But BJ is looking down at him with his eyebrows drawn together and a half-expectant smile on his lips. “You heard me, Hawk, can I kiss you,”  


“BJ,” Hawkeye is scrambling backward, because he doesn’t know how else to avoid saying _yes yes, please_ , before he knows what the hell is going on, why BJ is-  


Holding the letter out. “Hawkeye, look,” BJ is chasing him around the tent, excited, the way he does when Peggy sends baked goods and he wants to share. “Look at her letter, Hawkeye, she-” he gives a brief, bright shout of laughter. “Hold still, wouldya, I wanna read you this,”  
“BJ-”  


“Hawkeye, c’mon,” he stops moving, smiling, letter still outstretched. “Hawkeye, this is great- it’s look, would you just read the letter, huh? I know-” he takes a deep breath. 

“Okay, okay, I got excited. I- would you take this? All good news, I promise,”  


Reaching out carefully, Hawkeye takes the page, but he doesn’t look at it. “BJ, what’s gotten into you?”  


BJ’s smile is always like sunshine, but today it feels blinding. “C’mon, Hawk, I’ve wanted to kiss you forever. You mean- you mean everything to me, and- I mean, the way you look at me- it’s not exactly subtle,” he’s grinning again, so bright. “And I- well, I didn’t want to promise anything I couldn’t deliver, so I, well, Peggy knows, she’s always known- and she wrote me back,” he gestures at the letter. “And I would _really_ like to kiss you,”  


“What?”  


“I don’t think you’re listening to me.” BJ is grinning, approaching him with his hands out, soothing like he’s a scared shelter dog. Hawkeye hasn’t bitten anybody, not out of fear, but the way BJ is looking at him makes him wonder if the Californian thinks he might.  


He backs away, running into his cot. “Of course I’m listening. You just haven’t said anything that’s not crazy,”  


“Then what do you think?”  


“Think of what, Beej? Think of you losing your mind? I think it’s about time. You’ve made it longer than anybody else, welcome to the party, grab a noisemaker. BJ, you talking about doing _anything with _anyone _other than your wife is crazier than you letting Klinger use you as a dress form. I’d be less worried if you started riding Sophie around yelling yippee-kay-aye,”  
___

___BJ sits carefully on his bed, looking at Hawkeye. Waiting for him to sit. Never one to deny his best friend anything, he sits. “Hawkeye, you don’t understand.”  
_ _ _

___“What don’t I understand? Is this supposed to make sense to me? What, did I take a wrong turn in Korea and wind up in Wonderland? Hello, Alice, how are you? Shoes and ships and ceiling wax, cabbages and really too bad our resident king is on post-op,”  
_ _ _

___“‘The time has come to talk of many things,’” BJ provides the first half of the quote with a soft smile. “Hawkeye, listen to me. I’m not saying, hey, war is hell, gimme a hand. I want… I want to take you home. Peggy wants you to come home, too. To Mill Valley.”  
_ _ _

___The words all make sense individually, it’s the order that BJ is putting them in that has his heart throwing itself against his ribcage like an inmate convinced he can bend bars._ _ _

___“Since _when_? I- BJ- what?”  
_ _ _

__“I’ve been writing her about you since the first day I got here.” BJ smiles, that smile that looks like the sunrises over the water in Crabapple Cove, the one he would bet is what a sunset looks like from Stinson Beach. “She’s a smart woman, Hawkeye, she knows a good thing even if it’s only a print advertisement.”  
_ _

__He’s staring. “BJ…”  
_ _

__“I bet there’s a lot you don’t know, huh? No matter how big you talk with the nurses,” BJ is smiling as he stands, comes slowly and carefully to sit beside Hawkeye on his cot. “There’s a lot I don’t understand, too, Hawk. But what I do know is that I want to find out. With you and Peggy, safe and sound in California. Come home with me.”  
_ _

__“We don’t exactly get to leave whenever we want,” Hawkeye says, eyes flicking between his own hands and BJ’s face. “Your wife may give out free passes, but the army sure doesn’t.”  
_ _

__BJ’s smile flickers. “This isn’t a pass, Hawk, I- here, let me get her letters, you can keep them as long as you want, look ‘em over until you believe she means it. There’s a lot not in there. The censors, you know. But I can read between the lines, and Peggy’s good at writing between them too.” He reaches under his bunk, comes up with the box, newest letter set on top.  
_ _

__Hawkeye takes the proffered box, aware even in that gesture that BJ really must love him- these letters from Peggy are his most treasured possession, and he’s passing them over without even a return date. “Beej- even if- have you done this before? You and Peggy?”  
_ _

__“No,” BJ shakes his head. “But we thought it would be worth a try, with you.” He looks at his hands. “If... if you’re willing.”  
_ _

__“Yeah.” He says, information saturation point reached. “Yes. Oh, god, yes. Absolutely. _Please_.” His mind is running away with him, taking his mouth on a trip that’s rapidly leaving dignity behind. “Where’s Winchester when you need him, I need more synonyms for yes, _please_ yes,”  
_ _

__BJ grins. “Indeed,” he offers.  
_ _

__“Indubitably,” Hawkeye says it in his best _Charles_ , and BJ laughs. “BJ.” He’s using his own voice again, and it feels weak. “You mean it?”  
_ _

__“More than anything, Hawk. Please, come to Mill Valley.”  
_ _

__“I’ll… I’ll have to think about that one. Leaving home, my dad-”  
_ _

__With a nod, BJ says, “Take your time, and- enjoy the letters. Just, believe me, okay? Peggy and I… we both want this. Want you.”  
_ _

__“Two for one special,”  
_ _

__“More like all for one and one for all,” BJ’s hand comes up to rest tentatively on his cheek, and Hawkeye grips his best friend’s wrist like it’s a lifeline. “Hawkeye, is it alright if I kiss you?”  
_ _

___Is it alright, he asks, like I haven’t been begging him the whole war._ “Yeah, Beej. Please.” Like a teenager, he can’t help but shut his eyes, swaying a little closer, anticipation shooting up his spine, making him tingle down to the tips of his fingers.  
_ _

__It drives him crazy, that kiss. He thinks he must be wearing it on his sleeve next to his heart, all around camp, convinced that someone is going to corner him or congratulate him, but no one does. It’s a slow week, and the dust settles, leaving far too much time for catching BJ’s eye and smiling, blushing and looking away like he’s fourteen. He works his way through the letters from Peggy. Waits until BJ is on post-op, so he won’t worry that his expressions are being watched and weighed. There’s more about him in these letters than he would ever have expected, and it awes him, when he’s worn out and curled up in his bathrobe, legs folded up and edge of his thumbnail in his mouth in lieu of a martini as he reads.  
_ _

__He reads Peggy’s letters, slowly, and learns to read between the lines. Like BJ said, she’s good at getting a lot in there, if you know how to look at the blank spaces. Or he’s being hopeful. He knows BJ wouldn’t lie to him, not about this, but it still seems too good to be true, that both Hunnicutts feel about him the way he does about them. The odds are less than one in a million, less than the odds of him making an over-the-shoulder hook shot with his socks into their makeshift hoop on his first try. But the evidence that BJ promised is real, on each sheet of paper. He wishes he had the letters BJ wrote home- Peggy references them, but it’s not the same as reading for himself. He wants to know what he did to make BJ write something that Peggy answers with “Hawkeye sounds like he had a hard week; give him my love when you can.” He wants to know what it is that made Peggy Hunnicutt laugh the way she says she did when BJ recounted it. _Someday_ , he tells himself, _someday I’m going to set this box beside the one Peggy keeps, and match these letters up. What did I say, BJ, that made you love me enough to ask her to love me too_?  
_ _

__“What’s gotten into you?” Margaret finally asks, catching him tidying supply for lack of anything else to do that will keep him out of the way of life going obliviously on around him.  
_ _

__He shrugs.  
_ _

__“Well, get it out of you, will you? Seeing you go military is giving me the creeps,”  
_ _

__Hawkeye looks her in the eyes as he tips a box off of its shelf, and she puts her hands on her hips like she’s going to shout at him but she’s smiling. He high-tails it out of supply before she can decide that she’ll yell, too. Ah, the duality of Margaret Houlihan.  
_ _

__Finally, he finishes. And perhaps it’s hope, but he’s pretty sure that’s the thing with feathers, not paper and ink and places where the eraser rubbed so hard that he almost knows the words that aren’t there better than he knows the ones that are. BJ has been watching, giving him space, smiling at him the way that he always does, except now sometimes the tips of his fingers brush his lower lip and Hawkeye feels himself light up like he’s trying to keep a ship from running aground. Maybe he sort of is.  
_ _

__He knows what he wants to say, but he doesn’t know how to get it past the censors.  
_ _

__“Thank you for what you’ve shared with me,” he writes, and thinks that’s vague enough for the censors to think he means a recipe or a knitting pattern. But Peggy will know that’s not what he means, a recipe or a knitting pattern- unless there’s a recipe for this he doesn’t know about, something she’s trying to say, a sort of break-three-eggs-make-one-omelette message. “I can’t wait to share it in person,” he adds, and sits back. That could be a recipe. He doesn’t know what else to say, so he moves on, into the more familiar territory of stories and jokes, only realizing now that she probably reads these stories twice, once from him and once from BJ, each of them thinking they’re sharing secret pieces of the other with the woman who loves them both. It makes him smile, hurts his heart. It’s terrifying, in a way, to read her letters. It makes him ache for the war to end, to go home- and it scares him, to think of what he might find when he’s there. He sets his pen down for the thousandth time, knowing he can’t take much longer to finish this letter or he never will. His mind shies away from the possibilities while he’s awake, worst-case-scenarios running through his head: that Peggy will fall out of love when she meets him, that she’ll realize he’s not the way BJ seems to think he is, not a beacon or a support, that he’s more like the crumbling pier he and his dad used to fish off of than anything. Or that- something worse will happen. It's dangerous, after all, to love the way he does. He could get them in trouble. Break their perfect Mr.-and-Mrs.-and-that's-it life.  
_ _

__But in his dreams, in his dreams- in his dreams they dance, the three of them, in a way that’s not possible in reality, Peggy’s party dress under his hands with her hand in his, her other on BJ’s shoulder, both of BJ’s around his waist. He wakes up curled around himself, far too early, trying to blame it on Charles’ snoring. Throwing a pillow at his bunkie doesn’t make him feel better, but the duck-and-weave around the tent distracts him- worth it even when they wake up BJ with their shouting. BJ Hunnicutt loves his sleep, and Hawkeye feels bad whenever he interrupts it, but this morning he isn’t sorry that he did, looking at BJ’s reluctant smirk as he tries to climb the walls to escape Winchester’s vengeful grasp- it’s not a ploy that works, but he’s started the day off right even if he winds up hiding under his own bunk for his trouble. “Morning, Beej,” he says conversationally, smiling up at the roommate who isn’t currently appropriating his pillow. “You hear the birds singing?”  
_ _

__“Charles _shouting_ isn’t exactly music to my ears, Hawk,” BJ props himself up on one elbow, looking down at him. “Comfy under there?”  
_ _

__“Cleaner than I thought it would be.” Hawkeye holds up a single dirty sock. “Found your match,”  
_ _

__“Shut _up_ ,” Winchester groans, back in bed with his stolen pillow under his feet. Hawkeye promises himself to wash it after he steals it back.  
_ _

__“ _You_ shut up,” Hawkeye’s bravado is tinny, smiling up at BJ as he snipes back at Winchester. “This is war, every man for himself. Come back under your bunk or in it,”  
_ _

__“That is ‘with your shield or on it,’ and if you continue I shall _ensure_ it is the latter,”  
_ _

__Hawkeye looks up at BJ. “Suddenly it’s feeling a little Peloponnesian war in here, and I don’t remember who wins. Wanna get breakfast before we don our sandals and breastplates?”  
_ _

__“Hey, don’t recruit me, I’m a neutral party. Which war was the Peloponnesian again?”  
_ _

__“The average IQ in this place rests only slightly lower than _sea level_ , and you are drowning me in your ignorance.” Winchester rolls over, hands over his ears, and BJ laughs.  
_ _

__He flips the covers back and stretches, offering Hawkeye a hand off the floor. “Come on, you’re right. We should go before Charles has to admit he doesn’t remember who wins either.”  
_ _

__“Sparta,” Winchester mutters at them as they don their robes.  
_ _

__Just to annoy him, Hawkeye grins at BJ. “Oh, now I remember, that’s the one with Helen and the 300 soldiers,”  
_ _

__The door swings shut behind them as BJ laughs.  
_ _

__“So,” his best friend’s voice is quiet as they get coffee. “Have you- been reading?”  
_ _

__Hawkeye pauses. “Yeah. I have. I- uh- it’s nice. But I… I’m-”  
_ _

__“You don’t have to make any decisions, you know,” BJ is kind, so kind- how did he earn this kind of patience? This kind of love? It’s too raw, in a tent in a strange country where they’re covered in dirt and worse. “I don’t mean to rush you.” He smiles, and damn if it isn’t better than the dawn light outside.  
_ _

__“No, no, it’s- I dunno. I’m working on it. It’s like… I don’t know how to say what I want to say, so then I don’t know what to say.”  
_ _

__BJ laughs. “Maybe you shouldn’t’ve pissed off Mr. Dictionary,”  
_ _

__Hawkeye grins. “Ah, I’ll come back on my shield and apologize.”  
_ _

__They sit, too close on the bench, BJ’s hand on his shoulder, and Hawkeye just for a moment sees a day when he leans forward to look around BJ at Peggy, and she’s leaning forward to look back at him. “We’re shipping the last kids out of post-op today, right?” BJ asks, yawning, and it breaks the illusion.  
_ _

__“Yeah,” he answers, and suddenly the idea of having to work with BJ, to look across bloody tables and the kids who made them that way- it doesn’t seem fair. It certainly isn’t right. His knees start bouncing, below the table, and he can’t think of anything that would keep him still.  
_ _

__BJ notices. “You sure you need that coffee, Hawk?”  
_ _

__He laughs humorlessly, and their smooth day of moving kids out of post op turns into something much more garish, as though he’d jinxed the fragile peace by resisting the war. The early morning becomes a late night, and Hawkeye is ground down, refusing to get low. His mind rockets between terror and mania, doing anything at all to remember that the wreckage under his hands is _people_ and simultaneously completely unable to forget it. “Hey, Winchester, next time you donate blood I wanna be the one to draw it,”  
_ _

__“Trying to drain me of my physical life as well as robbing me of any semblance of an intellectual one, Pierce?”  
_ _

__His Dracula impression is _excellent, thank you_ , as he answers back, “I vant your blood,” he glances at BJ, who laughs. “No, but seriously,” he’s making mattress stitches in what could generously be called an organ. “I wanna see that blue blood you won’t shut up about. Must be a nice change from all this red,”  
_ _

__“Don’t get macabre, Pierce, it’s too early in the day,” Potter sighs at him. “Or is it still late at night? Major, what’s the time?”  
_ _

__Houlihan answers, “Eleven fifty-six, sir,”  
_ _

__“Huh. Okay, Pierce, you can be macabre for four more minutes.”  
_ _

__“No macabre before breakfast,” BJ puts in.  
_ _

__“That’s okay, Colonel, I think it’s just time for another party. Enter the blue period. Not seeing army green for a day was good, but not seeing blood red would be better.”  
_ _

__Potter sighs. “Wish I could promise to stop the wounded for a day, son, but it doesn’t work that way.”  
_ _

__“Time and the tides of war wait for no man,”  
_ _

__“It’s just ‘time and tide,’” Winchester corrects, annoyed. “The likes of you cannot _improve_ upon Chaucer, so please _refrain_ from your inane additions.”  
_ _

__“Close,” Hawkeye tells Kellye, and turns, drinking water and having sweat mopped from his brow, his gloves changed. “I’ve improved plenty on Chaucer in my time, for your information, The Miller’s Tale used to only have one dirty young man desperate to sleep with a carpenter’s wife,” He gives Kathy Able a _look_ over his surgical mask.  
_ _

__She rolls her eyes as Winchester says, “Deplorable,”  
_ _

__“Is that a step up or down from ‘degenerate,’” he asks as he dons new gloves, steps up to a new patient.  
_ _

__“Sideways,” BJ says.  
_ _

__“Ah, luckily I can do a horizontal mambo,”  
_ _

__BJ groans at what’s passing for a terrible joke, and he cackles, and then it’s back in, back and forth and back and forth, stitches.  
_ _

__The rocking doesn’t stop when he leaves OR, feeling like a short ship with no star to steer by, bouncing around post-op, getting on Marget’s nerves. By the time Charles relieves him, he’s nearly worn himself out, and he smiles at Winchester.  
_ _

__The night is warm, but the record of what they have just done is indelible in the air as it is on his skin, stains he’ll never wash completely clean.  
_ _

__The letter sits half-finished between the pages of a medical journal in his footlocker. He tries to ignore the looks BJ gives him.  
_ _

__One day passes, and then two, time slipping by as post-op devours it and he is unable to bring himself to think of beauty in the face of pain. It’s hard enough, having to look at BJ, his best friend, in circumstances like this- worse to think of taking it home. He doesn’t want to be the war personified, doesn’t want to be the reason BJ can’t forget. Doesn’t want to give Peggy two broken men who lend pieces of each other as field dressing. He barely notices that he’s avoiding BJ until suddenly they’re alone together and both awake, and he doesn’t know what to say.  
_ _

__“Helluva few days,” he tries, and BJ nods, looking up at him like he’s going to make it better.  
_ _

__He can’t. He doesn’t know how, not really- not this.  
_ _

__It’s sunset, and he escapes with a full martini glass into a quiet night at the end of a day spent moving boys out of post-op, and he can’t think of anything better to do than sit atop the backseat of a parked jeep, staring at the sky and drinking terrible gin that doesn’t even taste so bad anymore. When his glass is empty, he sets it beside him and leans back on his hands, looking up and wondering whether it’s easier to go back to the still and run the risk of BJ and those hopeful eyes or go to the O Club and run the risk of everyone else.  
_ _

__“Brooding again, Pierce?”  
_ _

__Without looking at the source of the voice- only one person in camp sounds like _that_ \- he shoots back, “Sorry, did you reserve this brooding spot? I thought it was first come first serve.”  
_ _

__He’s not in the mood to get Winchester’s bad advice, but apparently the Bostonian is in the mood to give it, climbing up beside him on the jeep and offering a flask. Hawkeye takes it, feeling the weight, admiring the craftsmanship- and what’s inside is even better, going down smooth and hot in exactly the way that still gin doesn’t.  
_ _

__“Hey, where did you get this?”  
_ _

__Charles doesn’t smile, exactly, but he looks softly at the silver flask as he says, “Honoria sent it to me. It was my grandfather’s.”  
_ _

__“She approve of your drinking habits, then?”  
_ _

__With a soft snort, Winchester takes a drink. “My grandfather was an alcoholic. Honoria is merely… reminding me.”  
_ _

__Turning to look at him in surprise, Hawkeye says, “I think I just added about five things to the list of stuff I know about you that isn’t you bragging.”  
_ _

__Ignoring that, Charles offers the flask again. Hawkeye takes it more gently, knowing what it is.  
_ _

__“You trying to get me drunk, Winchester?”  
_ _

__Rolling his eyes (in a very slight, dignified way), the Major answers, “You are doing that all on your own. If I hadn’t stopped, you’d have gone back to the still, the dubiously-securely-locked cabinet in the Colonel’s office, or to the Officers’ Club. I am hardly the only source of alcohol.”  
_ _

__“No,” Hawkeye agrees. “Sometimes I think the army wants to keep us swimming in it, so we don’t stage a prohibition protest. No drinks, no doctors. No war. Or at least, one that’s a hell of a lot harder to live with.”  
_ _

__“Hm,” the flask goes back in his pocket, and Winchester sits with his elbows on his knees, looking at his clasped hands rather than at Pierce. “Are you going to talk about whatever has come between you and Hunnicutt, or are you going to continue moping about camp avoiding him and causing trouble for the rest of us,”  
_ _

__Surprised, Hawkeye deflects. “By the rest of us do you mean you?”  
_ _

__“I _am_ the one who is forced to reside alongside you. When you disagree, that becomes even less tolerable than when you will not _stop_ agreeing.”  
_ _

__“You saying you liked it better when we were drawing on your head while you slept?”  
_ _

__“If you are making an attempt to convince me to abandon this ill-considered effort, you are succeeding,”  
_ _

__Hawkeye laughs, the heat of decent alcohol settling around his chest. He _wants_ to say something, but he doesn’t know what to say. Especially not to Winchester. _ _

__“Have you ever…” he’s started speaking before he’s found words, and has to swallow hard before he plows on. “Have you ever gotten yourself too far in before you realize- you- you know when you start something, and then you realize you can’t do it?”  
_ _

__Winchester is quiet for a long moment. “I believe you’re speaking of matters other than the practical.”  
_ _

__“Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there’ve been plenty of times I realized I couldn’t- I dunno, I can’t rollerskate for shit. Tried to take a girl once, nearly lost my front teeth. The adult ones,” he smiles over at his bunk mate, proving he still has all his pearly whites. “Definitely got in over my head with a couple of math tests in med school-” He stops, leans back to look up at a sky which is rapidly losing its last light. There’s a cold breeze, and it stings his cheeks. “This is… it’s not just something I can laugh off,”  
_ _

__“ _You_ can’t laugh something off? It must be serious indeed,” Winchester’s arch tone is belied by the fact that he’s holding out the flask again. “Pierce.”  
_ _

__“Thanks. Yeah. I don’t… know what to do.” He takes a drink and hands back the flask, watching Winchester. “You give some of the worst advice I’ve ever heard, sometimes, but when it… well, what do you think I should do?”  
_ _

__“You have given absolutely no particulars, made an incomprehensible allusion to rollerskating, and insulted me. I have very little to go on.” He pauses to drink from the flask. “However, I have never known you not to take arms against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. The regularity with which that approach serves you well is frankly astounding.”  
_ _

__Hawkeye laughs, folding his arms around himself, pulling his knees to his chest. The wind is getting colder. “To BJ or not to BJ,” he smiles, lips chapped.  
_ _

__That actually gets a quiet chuckle from Winchester. “Ah, something is rotten in the state of California?”  
_ _

__“No,” Hawkeye laughs back, bundling himself in his own arms more effectively, tugging his robe closed. “No, it’s… too good to be true,” There’s a star, right above him when he leans back. It’s so bright, it must be the north star. The sky isn’t even really dark yet, the sort of washed out black-violet that ink turns when tears fall on a letter, making the edges of words bleed onto otherwise perfectly nice white paper. Hawkeye thinks his eye turned that color, after the time BJ- well. The new still is better anyway. He looks at his other tentmate, sitting pensively beside him.  
_ _

__“Hm,” Charles’ posture hasn’t changed, elbows on his knees, but his hands turn the flask over and over, one thumb tracing the engraved edges of what looked like a hunt scene, when there was enough light to see patterns. “Pierce, forgive me if I am off the mark,” his normally-strident voice is gentle, careful like a bare foot on broken glass. “But if Hunnicutt has… well, I have heard enough Overtures, in enough theaters, to recognize the opening chords even in a Korean one,”  
_ _

__Hawkeye is pretty sure that was three meanings of each word, but he’s busier realizing that maybe he isn’t as subtle as he thinks he is. “Uh- you’re,” he clears his throat._ _

__“You’re not off the mark.”  
_ _

__“My congratulations. And my sympathies.”  
_ _

__“Sympathies?”  
_ _

__Hawk steels himself to hear a diatribe, but what he gets instead is Charles saying drily, “Well, _I_ certainly wouldn’t want to kiss him, with that moustache.”  
_ _

__Hawkeye throws his head back and laughs, drumming his heels on the seat of the jeep. “Oh my-” he cuts himself off with another peal of laughter, making a noise he knows Winchester hates, has compared to hyenas on more than one occasion, and is surprised when he looks up to see Charles smiling at him. “I had no idea you had a sense of humor,” it isn’t true, not after the time with the guppies, but it’s all he can think to say.  
_ _

__“My darkest secret,” Charles says wryly, unscrewing the flask again. “I’d appreciate it if you kept it to yourself.”  
_ _

__“Scout’s honor,”  
_ _

__“You were never a scout,”  
_ _

__“No, but I did get lost in the woods one time,”  
_ _

__He accepts the flask when Charles holds it out, sighing. “The New England woods,”  
_ _

__“It was fall,” Hawkeye says warmly. “I remember thinking I couldn’t have picked a prettier place to get turned around. Found a road though, just a long walk home. Everything was gold and orange.” He smiles. “I think I was about as cold as I’d been until I had my first Korean winter. My nose was as red as the leaves.” He’s quiet for a second, handing back the flask, wondering exactly how honest he can be. “It’s- uh,” he swallows. “The overture is- well, BJ’s not the only one conducting, you now? It’s both of them,” Hawkeye clarifies, quiet. “Peg didn’t just- give him a pass. She wants me to come home with him. She says. In her letters.”  
_ _

__“A more liberal woman than I would have guessed,” there’s something wistful in his tone, and Hawkeye spares a thought for conventions, the breaking of which he takes for granted.  
_ _

__He nods. “I… it’s not that I haven’t heard of it. You know, even in small towns, sometimes people are… different. It’s not that, really, that seems- fine. But it’s _BJ_.”  
_ _

__“Should that not make things easier? He is, after all, your best friend,”  
_ _

__“What if your best friend called you up one day and said, hello Charles, I’m in love with you, would you like to come home and meet my wife? Get to know her in the Biblical sense?”  
_ _

__Winchester is silent as Hawkeye chuckles halfheartedly to himself. “I… apologize.”  
_ _

__“No, you’re right. It should be easier, because it’s BJ. I know him, I know he’s not kidding, I know he means it. That just- it just makes it worse. Because he really, really means it, _now_ , but he’s never seen me at home, and I won’t be the same anyway probably, and Peggy’s never even _met_ me, and- they believe in a me I’m not sure I am.”  
_ _

__“‘Such disguise as haply shall become the form of my intent,’”  
_ _

__“What?”  
_ _

__“Twelfth Night. Honoria’s favorite.” Hawkeye is surprised to feel Charles’ hand on his shoulder, warm through the robe. “Pierce… you have been nothing but honest, particularly with Hunnicutt. I shouldn’t be surprised to learn that he knows you, deeper than the jokes.”  
_ _

__Hawkeye sighs. “I hope so. You know, we’ve seen each other all kinds of ways here, but the thought of seeing him in the sun, in civvies, of seeing Peggy,” _in that dress or any other, in jeans, in a robe with a cup of coffee in the morning- how does she drink her coffee? What color is her robe?_ He’s suddenly dying to know. “It’s too good to be true,”  
_ _

__“The finer feelings have little home here, true, but that does not mean they do not await you.”  
_ _

__“You seem to be full of fine feelings tonight,”  
_ _

__“Blame the cognac.”  
_ _

__“You never do let up, do you?”  
_ _

__Charles shakes the flask. “This is far too full for that.”  
_ _

__“Some reminder.”  
_ _

__“Hm.”  
_ _

__Looking up at the stars again- more of them every moment, just like the things he loves about BJ, the things he wants to love about Peggy- he sighs. “Thanks, Chuckles.”  
_ _

__“ _Don’t_ ,”  
_ _

__Hawkeye laughs. “Yeah, alright. My most sincere thanks, Major Doctor Charles Emerson Winchester the third, you have my eternal gratitude in addition to your eternal name.” He leans briefly into his tentmate, brushing their shoulders. “My dad says hi, by the way.”  
_ _

__“Oh,” Charles ducks his head- Hawkeye would bet that he’s smiling, in the dark. “Please convey my… ah, please say ‘hi’ back.”  
_ _

__“I will,” he grins. “I’m gonna go say a different kinda hello. The hello sailor kind. Do you mind, uh,”  
_ _

__“I did attend University, Pierce, I know what a sock on the door is intended to signify. Perhaps I can catch Corporal Klinger before patrol and place a call to Boston. Those take some time to connect.”  
_ _

__Hawkeye shoulders him again. “Tell him I sent you.”  
_ _

__“Absolutely not.” Charles straightens, sighs as he stands. “And the duration of my eviction is to be?”  
_ _

__“Gimme a half hour?”  
_ _

__Charles puts his hands in his pockets. “Either I have forgotten more than you ever knew, or we conceptualize the phrase ‘hello sailor’ in vastly diverging ways.”  
_ _

__Hawkeye smiles. “Why not both, save ourselves some time.”  
_ _

__“Very well, Pierce, you have your half an hour.”  
_ _

__He grins and makes for the Swamp. “Hey, BJ,”  
_ _

__BJ pivots on a dime, and it reminds Hawkeye of roller skating, how gravity suddenly worked differently when someone grabbed your hand. He wonders if he’s about to knock his front teeth out.  
_ _

__“I finished reading,” he says, “well, re-reading,” he smiles, and ducks under his bunk for the box of letters. “And I… I hit a wall with writing back. Look it over for me?”  
_ _

__BJ takes the box with one hand, the proffered paper with the other. “Sure thing, Hawk.”  
_ _

__“‘M sorry I’ve been-” he gestures, wrist limp. “You know.”  
_ _

__“It’s okay, Hawk. I wanna give you space.” BJ laughs, ducking his head, hand self-consciously at the back of his neck. “I know I- I kinda tried to rush into things, the other day. I just… I got excited.”  
_ _

__Taking his friend’s face in his hands, Hawkeye grins. “BJ Hunnicutt, don’t you dare apologize for getting excited about kissing me. Someone has to.”  
_ _

__“Striking out with the nurses again?”  
_ _

__“My swings have gotten a little halfhearted,”  
_ _

__BJ leans toward him, brushes their mouths. “Batter up,” he smiles, and Hawkeye groans, kissing him again just to stop him before the puns get worse.  
_ _

__“I love you,” he murmurs, tugging BJ in closer, tilting his head. “But my jokes are funnier.”  
_ _

__“Not the bird impressions joke,” BJ counters, grinning, leaning out of the embrace briefly to set the box of letters on his bunk so he can settle his hands on Hawkeye’s hips.  
_ _

__“ _Fuck_ you,”  
_ _

__BJ smirks. “Why don’t you gimme a hand with that,”  
_ _

__Smile wider than the impossible vault of the sky, Hawkeye very nearly tackles him to the bunk.  
_ _

__He can’t stop his hands, all his imaginings are halfway real, like the coast in the fog. “Beej,” he breathes. “I hate your moustache.”  
_ _

__BJ starts laughing, head tipping back, and Hawkeye takes advantage to kiss down his neck, unbuttoning the pink shirt he’s wearing, fingers quick. Chasing a dream. One of BJ’s hands is in his hair, and it tugs lightly. “Hawk- Hawkeye. Did you want me to read?”  
_ _

__“Yeah,” Hawkeye sighs, letting himself go limp on his best friend.  
_ _

__“You gonna let me up?”  
_ _

__Heaving a second, louder sigh, Hawkeye says, “yeah.”  
_ _

__“Don’t get me wrong,” BJ is brushing his hand through Hawkeye’s hair, fond, “I’m enjoying this,”  
_ _

__Pressing a kiss to BJ’s shoulder, Hawk smiles. “Me too. But you gotta read. And we only have about five more minutes before Winchester gets back, anyway.”  
_ _

__“How d’you know that?”  
_ _

__“He gave me cognac and said go get ‘em tiger,”  
_ _

__“If Charles actually said that I’d pass out laughing.”  
_ _

__“Think I have anything he wants? I could bribe him. Gimme an excuse to give you mouth to mouth.”  
_ _

__BJ groans, pushing him, and Hawkeye rolls off, laughing. He falls clean off the bed, and pops up happily, looking at BJ’s smile. “Mouth to mouth isn’t sexy, Hawkeye. Stick to kissing me, alright?”  
_ _

__“Scout’s honor.”  
_ _

__“You were never a scout.”  
_ _

__“Why doesn’t anyone think I have the integrity of a boyscout?”  
_ _

__BJ stands and ruffles his hair, “sorry Hawk,” he picks up the letter, tucking the box full of Peggy’s back under the bed. “I don’t see where you’re stuck,” he says after a moment. “This seems like it’s finished.”  
_ _

__“Does it?”  
_ _

__BJ nods decisively, producing an envelope and sealing the letter in. “Let’s address it and we’ll drop it off first thing tomorrow.”  
_ _

__Peggy Hunnicutt’s eyes will soon read his words, her fingers sat where his sat, brushing a piece of paper that’s a link and a gamble. Like betting on the trains. He hopes to god this one is on time. “You think it’ll be okay? With her?” His voice is soft.  
_ _

__“Hawkeye, it already is,” BJ’s voice is quiet. “C’mere.” He holds his arms out. “She already loves you, Hawk. And so do I. It’ll all work out.”  
_ _

__Holding onto BJ as tightly as he’s held anything in his life, Hawkeye murmurs, “Thanks, Beej,”  
_ _

__They drop off the letter.  
_ _

__BJ goes on post-op, and Hawkeye meanders the camp, nothing to do with himself but create chaos. Being the only _impetus_ is driving him crazy, wishing something would act on him, the world’s most movable object.  
_ _

__“Hawkeye, you’re driving me crazy,” Margaret catches him by the elbow as he spins by, testing the theory that he can dance. “Come here.”  
_ _

__“What are you gonna do to me,” he doesn’t pull away, but he doesn’t make it easy for her either.  
_ _

__“Buy you a drink,” she snaps back, a quiet smirk playing around her lips. “Come on, sailor.”  
_ _

__The O Club isn’t empty, but Kellye and Klinger dancing by the jukebox hardly counts, much less Igor cleaning the same dirty glass with the same dirty cloth over and over again. Hawkeye watches with a shudder, glad he drinks straight from the bottle. “What’ll you have,” Margaret asks him, leaning on the bar.  
_ _

__“Uh, a beer is fine,” he slouches to a table, folds into a chair, limbs every which way, trying to bring his brain back to where it belongs between his ears and behind his eyes.  
_ _

__Margaret sets his beer in front of him, holding her own, and settles in across from him. “Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you, or do I have to drag it out of you?”  
_ _

__“Oh,” Hawkeye stalls by taking a pull from his beer. Is he _that_ transparent? Even the Majors picking up on it means it must be visible from space. But Margaret understands him, in this- the way neither of them can find anyone. She’d understand his terror if he told her he’d found _two_ someones, but he doesn’t think she can take the blatant communism of it all. “I… okay. Okay,” he clears his throat and shuffles himself around in his chair. “I, uh, have this… pen pal.”  
_ _

__Margaret nods, waiting. She spreads her hands when he doesn’t say more.  
_ _

__He takes another drink, watching Klinger and Kellye spin. Igor still has that same damn glass, and he has to drag his eyes away to keep from getting up and washing that rag himself. He shuffles, refocusing his eyes on Margaret. How odd, her sitting there. Oh, waiting for him to talk. “Yeah. So she’s…”  
_ _

__“ _Oh_ ,”  
_ _

__Hawkeye can’t help but smile, raising his eyebrows. “Am I that predictable?”  
_ _

__“You’re not… not predictable.” Margaret shakes her head. “At least she’s far enough away to have a head start when you start chasing her.”  
_ _

__He chuckles into his drink, taking it as it’s meant, Margaret’s offer of friendship always a little skewed. She puts her hand out sideways to shake and he bends to kiss it. She won’t ever hold it out flat, and if she did he’d shake it instead. “Yeah, that’s the problem, you know; I don’t have to chase. She’s, uh, she’s- well, she’s chasing me.”  
_ _

__Margaret laughs, not a little bitterly. “And what’s so wrong with that?”  
_ _

__“How- how can I miss somebody I never met?” Hawk gestures expansively over the table with the hand that’s holding his beer. Margaret (wisely) leans away from his drink. “I mean, I don’t even _know_ -”  
_ _

__Margaret thinks about their custom needs, the off-the-rack world. She can’t tailor herself to fit anybody, and she wouldn’t ask anybody to tailor themselves to fit her. Still, can she help it that she wants to find someone like Helen- someone who naturally fits, drapes over her sharp edges and supports her curves. “Maybe you’re thinking it feels hand in glove,” she allows. “I don’t know about your pen pal. And I don’t _want_ to, the things you’re probably writing.” She gives him a look that is somehow both sharp and fond. “But you never really know… hell, even after you’ve met somebody, you never really know.”  
_ _

__“Yeah.” Hawkeye finishes his drink. “You know, yeah, even after you’ve met somebody, you never really know. So what’s so different about this? Nothing.” He hadn’t thought about that until it comes out of his mouth, the words more right than he might have thought they’d feel- and they’re true. Waiting for Peggy’s reply to his letter shouldn’t be the hardest thing he does, this war. Saying I love you over a thousand miles is a hell of a lot better than leaving someone wondering. He’ll be glad he did it, probably forever, whichever way any of this goes. Jumping to his feet, he says, “thanks for the beer, Margaret,”  
_ _

__“I didn’t mean-” he’s walking away from her. She wonders if he’s right, somehow, to throw himself out into the world over and over. She’s watched him stumble drunkenly back, more than once, but then again- how many things around camp, how many patients, how many personnel issues has he fixed, by simple dint of being willing to pull out all the stops, every time, no matter how trivial the issue. She remembers the ribs from Chicago, all the stupid things he’s gone to bat for, and smiles. This seems more important than any of that ever was- and she doesn’t doubt that he knows it too.  
_ _

___Good luck, Hawkeye_._ _


End file.
